Page 26 of A Very Knotty Halloween
He accepts it, accepts me, and if he accepts me, it isn’t that far-fetched to say Damien and Cas will accept me, too.
That’s the thing, though. That’s what I’m scared of. It’s one thing to overcome your fears and hook up with a pack of alphas you’ll never see again. It’s a whole different thing to come face-to-face with your forever pack and know that you’ve found yourself the path to your next phase in life.
I knew packs would be formed tonight, one way or another. I just never thought I’d be in one of them.
“Give us a chance,” Jack whispers. “Damien and Cas can be a little much sometimes, but they’re good guys. We can take care of you, but only if you let us. You have to want this as badly as we do—but I’m sure Cas will want to ask you, officially.” He nuzzles against the side of my head. “Just know that if you let us, we can stand by your side and help you overcome every fear. We can do it together.”
I don’t say anything to that, mostly because there isn’t anything to say. He’s not wrong. I can’t bring myself to argue with him. Still, this all came out of the blue for me—Cas might’ve been planning this night for a while, but I was in the dark the whole time. I’m just supposed to suddenly accept the fact that my estranged stepbrother and his pack want to be my mates? That they want me to join their pack as their omega?
I mean, it isn’t unheard of, when it comes to stepsiblings. Having stepsiblings isn’t super common, because typically mated couples or packs never break up, but like with our parents, things do happen sometimes, and when you bring people together, regardless of whether they’re children or they’ve already presented, things could happen. They aren’t related by blood, so nature hasn’t walled-off the possibility. It’s possible.
Not only possible, but messy as hell.
Jack and I cuddle while the others try to get the bath and the bubbles under control, while still filling the large tub. Of course, at this point, with the entire bottle of bubble bath poured in, there isn’t much either of them can do, and eventually they give in to the mess.
Bubbles are everywhere. Bubbles encroach the bottom of the bed. Bubbles fill the air. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles. There are more bubbles than I’ve ever seen in my life, especially at once, to the point where it’s ridiculous. Like one of those pictures you see online and laugh about, because there’s no way in hell it can be real.
“Well,” Damien says once he turns the water off. The alpha is literally surrounded by bubbles. He stands in the tub, but the bubbles encompass him entirely. I can’t really see him from where I sit with Jack on the bed. “I think this is as good as it’s going to get. Tub’s full, by the way, so you guys can come on in. The water’s great. Bubbles are bubbly.”
Cas sighs, like Damien is his greatest disappointment, but he doesn’t say anything to him. He does, however, stride to the bed and pull me into his arms. Jack releases his hold on me so Cas can pick me up and carry me to the tub.
“You know, I have legs,” I say, even though my legs feel like goo after all that sex. “I don’t need you to carry me like I’m helpless.” Being cradled against his chest is actually kind of nice—he has wide, defined pectorals that could easily double for pillows. Hell, his chest might be bigger than mine thanks to all those muscles.
Alphas and their muscles. If only they didn’t drive me crazy.
Cas doesn’t respond. He brings us to the tub, where he carefully steps down into it, even though he can’t see for shit thanks to all the bubbles. Jack is seconds behind us, and together we eke out a space in the large tub for the four of us. Cas keeps me in his arms while Jack and Damien push the mound of bubbles away from our location, so that we can sit in the warm water without breathing them in or getting the bubbles up our noses.
“Well,” Cas finally speaks, holding me on his lap, “I can honestly say this isn’t what I had in mind when I told Damien to run a bath.” Damien stretches, shrugs, and grins like it’s no big deal. “But honestly, I don’t care about the bubbles.” Under the water, his hands roam my body, moving up my back, down my sides, over my legs—to the point where it’s difficult for me to sit there and not melt into him.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Damien mutters under his breath, but when Cas shoots an annoyed look his way, he pretends he doesn’t see him and grabs some bubbles, making himself a bubbly beard. “Call me daddy from now on.” He deadpans it so easily that Jack busts out laughing, and I can’t help but giggle, too. Cas is the only one that remains aloof after that silly joke.
Jack lifts a hand, like he’s a student in a classroom asking a question of his teacher, who, in this case, would be the alpha with the bubble beard. “Do we all have to call you daddy, or was that an invitation for Marnie?”
“Uh… all of you,” Damien says, which makes Cas scoff.
“Please,” the alpha holding me mutters. “Like I’d ever call you that.”
Damien leans back and flexes his biceps. “Hey, I could be a daddy.”
“I don’t think you have to look like a daddy to be called daddy,” Jack chimes in, thoughtful. “If you want us to call you that, you don’t need a beard—”
“Ugh, I’m done with this conversation,” Cas speaks with a frown. “Let’s talk about something else.” He turns his chin down at me. “Like you, Marnie. Let’s talk about you.” He takes one of his hands off my body beneath the water and tucks some of my hair behind my ear. “You smell so goddamn good. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
I bite my bottom lip, unsure of how I should respond to that. Of course, my first instinct is to tell him that he smells ridiculously good, too, and that it’s hard for me to think straight when I’m near him, that I feel like I’ll lose my mind if I’m not in the same room as him… which, now that I’m thinking about it, is exactly how my dad described what he felt when he met Cas’s mom for the first time.
Crap. Are we scent matches? The possibility blows my mind, and if it wasn’t for the warm water and the alpha holding onto me, I’m sure I would’ve shivered at that revelation.
It must be written across my face, because Cas says quietly, “You feel it, too. You know it, deep down, what we are. There’s no use denying it, no use fighting it. When we met at the wedding, we were kids, too young to really know better. I know you smelled good, but that’s it—that’s what I thought back then,anyway. Now I know it was so much more than that. It was my body’s way of telling me I found my mate.” His jaw grinds, the expression on his face too intense for words. “Just a little too early for us both.”
I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if Cas had elected to stay with us, with his mom, rather than his dad back then. Would we have tiptoed around each other all these years, or would something inappropriate have happened between us? Something taboo. Something that, if we really are scent matches, could not have been held against us.
When scent matches are in the picture, all logic gets thrown out of the window.
“Now that I have you,” he continues, holding onto me tighter beneath the water, “I’m not going to let you go. I hope you know that, Marnie.”
Jack grins. “I think what our pack leader is trying to say is: he wants to know if you’d join our pack, if you’d be our omega.”
I knew it was coming, and yet that doesn’t stop my heart from beating so fast in my chest it’s suddenly liable to pop out and run away. That anxious feeling in my gut, that fearfulness of the future that has never really let me go, returns, and I glance between the three alphas.
